Fishing from the heart

"Home is where the heart is" according to a well known proverb, and for me "home" is  defined less by place and more by people. I have spent most of my adult life living in Vicarages, often impressive architecturally but "tied cottages" and not mine to own, and now that my wife and I do own our house it's an unremarkable, unprepossessing three bed semi with a well tended garden, but nothing to get particularly excited about. To me, the bricks and mortar are merely the "rain shelter" within which life happens and memories are made, and it's the people with whom that life is shared and those memories made that are where my heart is.

All of which, by way of lengthy preamble, explains why today was for me, in words stolen from Bill Withers a "lovely day."

Today was a Sunday, but not just any Sunday, today was Father's Day and although it began like any Sunday in this coronavirus season does for me, by setting up my laptop to log in to online church (it no longer seems strange to "go to church" in pajamas and dressing gown while eating breakfast), the rest of the day comprised of what my own father would have described as "special treats." I never knew what the distinction between a bog-standard treat and a special treat was, but it was a phrase much used in our family during my 1970's childhood.

The treats began with a responsibly socially distanced visit from my daughter and her husband who currently live in London, but are moving to Nottingham at the end of the Summer, and so have been staying in Leicester these last few days sorting things out. After being unable to see them for most of the year to date, seeing them several times over the last week has been a joy, even if hugging remains off limits until Boris tells us otherwise! Cards and presents were received and after a leisurely and unhurried  traditional roast dinner courtesy of my wife, I was given an "exit pass" for the rest of the day, and whisked off to the lake by my son and his girlfriend.

It was three in the afternoon by the time we arrived at the club lake, and following a week of heavy rain the grass was wet underfoot and the lakeside vegetation rich, glistening green, and verdant. James and I set up our tackle, both of us float fishing and both electing to use centre pin reels. I matched my cane Allcocks Wizard with a Record Breaker reel from the same manufacturer, while James paired a modern carbon rod with his pin, and so we commenced to fish for carp in the margins with bread and sweetcorn for bait.

The fish came in rapid procession, mostly carp of no great size, but all of exquisite beauty and in pristine condition. The carp in this lake, especially the mirrors, are among the prettiest I have ever seen.

My porcupine quill float was rarely undisturbed for more than a few seconds before darting under, and although we missed countless of the lightening fast bites, by the time we packed up after just a couple of  hours of  reasonably casual fishing, we had landed around thirty fish between us, mostly carp with the occasional roach or rudd and a solitary roach/bream hybrid.

The majority of the fish were somewhere in the quarter of a pound to one pound size bracket, but I did manage to extract one larger carp, pictured below along with a video of my tussle with said fish. As ever, the Wizard coped admirably with its adversary despite its years now almost numbering three score and ten.

While the club lake mostly fulfills the role of pleasant distraction before the serious business of fishing for specimen perch is resumed in the Autumn, it has become for me a place of connections, connecting me, in its simplicity, with the angling of my childhood, but above all providing a place in which I and my son have time to connect and enjoy each other's company while fishing.
Like I said, for me it's all about the people.

Baskets, bags, boxes and bamboo tubes.

Far be it from me to be dismissive of Julie Andrews- she's a Dame, a "national treasure" and an eighty four year old woman- but I've always been underwhelmed by the list of "favourite things" that she sings about in The Sound of Music- it takes more than "whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens" to put a smile on my face, but perhaps that's the point. Such lists are subjective, and aren't guaranteed to be received with the same enthusiasm as is shown by the one moved to share them.

I was reflecting in an absent minded moment recently on my own fishing "favourite things" list, and realising that it isn't just the expected things that bring me pleasure, but often the little things that might to someone else appear incidental and unimportant.

So, in the spirit of Maria, and with not a "lonely goatherd" in sight, here are a few of my (piscatorial) favourite things:

Now, if honesty is allowed momentarily to trump angling romanticism, an old style willow basket is not the most comfortable of items on which to park one's posterior but that in no way detracts from my affection for mine. (Point of clarification: I refer to my affection for my basket, not my posterior!) A present from my wife, purchased from a well known internet selling site (yeah, you know the one) it was, as they say, "pre-owned" and  required a fair degree of TLC upon first arriving- a good clean with soapy water, followed by a coating of boiled Linseed Oil, but the result is a basket that has been accompanying me on fishing adventures for the best part of 15 years, and definitely finds a place in my favourite things list.

There are, however, days when a bag is preferable to a basket, and on such days a more recent acquisition takes its place in my prized possessions list. It's a trout fishing bag (although in my case, always employed for "coarse" rather than "game" purposes), which, although inexpensive, in it's colouration and style, and with it's leather buckles, conforms exactly to the image in my mind of what a good fishing bag should look like.

Also deserving of their place are my bamboo float tubes, and boxes full of traditional handmade floats. I have float tubes in both flamed and unflamed bamboo, with minimalistic whippings in black, scarlet and blue. Each holds only a handful of floats, but there is an aesthetic appeal that transcends their functional qualities and, along with many other traditional anglers, such float tubes hold a privileged place in my angling affections.

As well as the tubes, there are the boxes, each with slotted foam to hold the floats secure, with my favourite being one that exclusively houses a part of my perch bob collection, which has been "customised" with a sticker obtained from the USA featuring a shoal of perch twisting and turning in the water with predatory intent.

A constant companion on my fishing trips is my Swiss Army knife, still in immaculate condition despite being moved from tackle box to tackle box a number of times during the course of a season for the last quarter of a century. Its presence tends to be more for its totemic value than for regular use, although it does find itself cutting luncheon meat into cubes and performing various practical tasks from time to time, but I refuse to set off for the riverside or lake without it, still holding onto the boyish notion that a tackle box that doesn't contain a knife is in some way diminished by the absence. It is pictured here in my pike box, although it is mostly to be found in my general coarse box, a yellow and clear perspex Stewart box that I have had since I became a fisherman at the tender age of 13.

The penultimate item that finds its way into my "hall of fame" is my wooden landing net. With a lovely bamboo handle elegantly whipped in burgundy, and with a mesh that although modern, knot-less, and fish-safe, manages still to convey in its appearance  the suggestion of a previous era. Having only a small frame, its use is restricted to  waters that contain fish of only modest proportions, but it is a thing of beauty and always a pleasure to slip underneath a fish.

The final item to feature in my eclectic, but highly personal, list is my Australian bush hat. Given to me twelve years ago by my parents for my 40th birthday, it has not only adorned my head while fishing, but has also accompanied me on safari in East Africa and on a fishing road trip across the Southern States of the USA. It probably only comes with me on three or four fishing trips per year but is another article of my angling related ephemera for which I have an inordinate affection.

So, there you have it. None of these items are the "hardware" of fishing (the rods and reels), none are essential in order to fish, but all form a part of the pleasure of the rich wider tapestry that makes angling such an engrossing hobby in which to immerse oneself.
So, "When the dog bites, When the bee stings, When I'm feeling sad ..." it's to these that I'll turn!

Roach - the "shoulder padded jacket of the fish world."

My copy of the Observer's Book of Coarse Fishing (a Christmas present from my parents in 1981) informs the reader that the roach is the "best known and most popular" of Britain's coarse fish species, and Bernard Venables in Mr Crabtree goes Fishing  ( I have the 1959, sixth edition, on my bookshelves) concurs, describing the roach as "the most popular of the fishes". Izaak Walton, however took a counter view writing "... the roach is accounted the water sheep for his simplicity or foolishness." Personally, although in matters piscatorial (and theological) I invariably find myself in accord with Walton, in this instance I must side with BV, who contends that " a large roach is most difficult to deceive." Supporting evidence for his claim is the fact that while I have caught numerous roach in excess of a pound, I have yet to land a two pounder.

My fondness for roach is in part a response to their aesthetic attractiveness, in part a result of the fact that they are susceptible to the float fishing tactics that I prefer, and also because they seem to me to be emblematic of a simpler, more wholesome and innocent era in angling history - a time before the cult of the carp and the carp angler had redefined the practice of fishing.

With its bluish green back, metallic silver scales and bold red fins, the roach is possessor of  an elegant and simple beauty - unarguably attractive without being in the least bit "showy".

Many roach have graced my net over the years, and the capture of my first weighing in excess of a pound  (a fish of 1lb 4oz taken in the October school half-term of 1982) remains one of my fondest and most vivid angling memories. I have spent many a pleasant evening fishing for roach with my son (he is pictured here with my brother, Andy, each displaying a nice example of the species), and while I have never indulged in any serious pursuit of the species, I remain hopeful that one day a two pounder will join me on the bank.

Fashions change (hence the somewhat cryptic title of this piece), and it may be that it is the fate of the roach to be the piscatorial equivalent of the steam engine, the VHS recorder or the shoulder-padded jacket, but I hope not, and would love to see a resurgence of affection for species rutilus rutilis. I also really need to do something about the fact that my biggest ever roach was landed by accident while fishing for carp with a boilie on a bolt rig, a method of fishing which seems a crude, disrespectful, and  wholly inappropriate  way to fool such a delicate biting adversary. 

I am (I believe to my credit) suitably embarrassed.

On being "In the club..."

According to Brian Adam's the summer of '69 seemed to last forever, although as I was only one year old at the time I feel unqualified to adjudicate on the veracity of his observation. However, 51 years on and the late spring/early summer of 2020 seems already to have been a protracted affair with minutes, hours, days and weeks feeling as if they pass with much less haste than is customary. No doubt the blurring of the normal delineating lines that we use to regiment our days has been a contributory factor with many people furloughed from work, others like myself working from home, children kept from school, and  weeks of confinement at home having been  necessitated as a national response to the coronavirus pandemic. Also playing its part has been the weather, with summer starting earlier than usual and Britain enjoying week after consecutive week of languorous, somnolent sunshine. And so it was, in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon in the first week in June, with the sun high in the sky, my son James and I, accompanied by James's girlfriend Emma, made our first foray to the lake owned by a club we'd just been invited to join by an angling friend and neighbour. After years of mostly day ticket angling I was back in the world of cardboard covered club membership books, newsletters, AGM's and lakes far from the madding day ticket crowd.

We set up in lilly pad fringed swims next to each other, both electing to float fish. I had opted to deploy my vintage 10 foot fibreglass avon rod, matched with an Allcocks Record Breaker reel, and soon both of our floats were dipping and disappearing regularly. Bites were lightening quick, and more were missed than hit, but the result when fish were hooked was a procession of the most beautiful small carp, wonderful scaly mirrors with caramel coloured flanks and darker commons, every one pristine in condition.

Set amid trees, quiet, peaceful, and litter free, this was summer fishing at its most pleasing. Baits were traditional and simple (a can of sweetcorn and a loaf of bread) and the pleasure of fishing was accentuated by the pleasure of fishing as father and son, a pleasure that began when James caught his first fish aged just three and remains as strong sixteen years on. The carp were joined by the occasional roach or rudd (even Emma took a break from spectating and sunbathing to catch her first ever fish), and as late afternoon gave way to evening we packed up and walked back to the car enveloped by a glow of gentle satisfaction. This was simple fishing in pleasant surroundings and good company. Izaak Walton would have approved and understood.